


fixing this

by lostin_space



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, the one where maria does her best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 03:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20146807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: Everything is a mess. Maria is tired of it.





	fixing this

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this before/during work because I was very anxious and needed a distraction, so I apologize if there's any mistakes. hope you enjoy xx

The airstream was on fire.

Panic built in Maria’s body and she quickly looked to her passenger seat where her drunken boyfriend sat. he had been out of it for the most part when they left, but, when his eyes settled on the fire, he seemed to sober up.

“No. No, no no,” he said, jumping out of the truck before she could even bring it to a full stop. She slammed on her breaks.

“Guerin!”

She quickly put the car in park, jumping out after him to make sure he didn’t do something stupid like try to go inside. She, the fire didn’t seem all-encompassing just yet, but it was small. She would bet things were already ruined. He didn’t need to burn for that.

“Stop, Michael!” she yelled, catching his arm just barely and tugging him away. “It’s going to be okay! It’s just stuff, it’s okay!” 

Maria tried, she really did. She even went to call 911, but he was her first priority and him fighting her made it hard to call. And her words seemed to only make it worse.

_“No! It’s all I have!” _

It was hard to know what happened next. It was so fast. One moment flames were licking out of the open door while she held Michael back, and the next he was screaming and out of reach and inside the airstream. Then the flames stopped.

“Michael!” Maria screamed, chasing after him. She busted into the airstream to find him on the ground, the entire front half of the trailer irreparable. “Michael, what… You can’t just run into a burning building!”

“I stopped it, didn’t I?!” he screamed back, looking up to her with tears streaming down his face. She took a few breaths to keep calm because he was right, he had. Whatever alien magic took over, he stopped it. 

“Still, you could’ve gotten hurt. And over what?” Maria said, her voice softer this time. She crouched down in front of him, reaching for his arm. Michael had a partially charred box in front of him, one that he seemed to be happy to cry into as he sifted through it. “C’mon, this air isn’t good to breathe. We’ll figure this out. You can stay with me until we can figure out how to fix this. The good thing is that no one got hurt and‒”

Michael cut her off with a scream so pained, so guttural that it made her jump. His body was shaking as he choked on his sobs, pulling something so delicately from the box. She looked down to see a destroyed picture. It was hard to make out from all cracks and holes and the entire thing was tinted brown. The only thing she could see was two pairs of legs in front of the airstream, one in jeans and another in camouflage.

Oh.

“Michael…” she said softly. She pushed away any of the pain she was feeling. He was worse.

“It’s all I had. It’s all I had. It’s all I had.” Michael just kept repeating the words, crying and rocking as held the picture with a light touch. She was so sure it would crumble if he was too rough, so she made no move to try and take it from him to get him to leave. 

“C’mon, it’s going to be okay. It’s just stuff, that’s it.”

“No! Just go away!” he yelled, “It’s all I have!” 

She was struggling to understand if he meant the airstream or Alex.

“Michael, look around, not everything destroyed. And-and I know you have most of your important stuff down in the bunker. This, this is just a setback. That’s it,” Maria tried again. He shook his head. 

Maria did her best a few more times before realizing this wasn’t going to work.

“I’m going to call Alex,” she told him. That got his attention.

“Yeah, for what? Not like he’s gonna come. Why would he come? He doesn’t care,” Michael said, easily the most comprehensible thing he’d said in hours so of course, it had to feel like a punch in the throat. 

Alex had basically dropped off the face of the earth when he saw them together. She understood. As much as she wished he could just be supportive of them, she understood his desire to get away. She knew he was still around if only because of Kyle mentioning his name offhandedly, but that was as much as she knew. Well, she also knew it had taken a massive toll on Michael.

He was drunk more times than he wasn’t to the point she had to find out he was an alien through him using his powers on accident and Isobel having to explain things. It felt like a betrayal that they had all kept it from her, but she also couldn’t bring herself to dump him over it. He’d lost so much and he was miserable. She was less a girlfriend and more a caretaker and he _knew_ it, but neither of them wanted to end it if only because that meant hurting Alex for nothing. Well, that’s why she did it. She was becoming convinced that he forgot they were even supposed to be dating.

“Because I don’t know what to do with you,” Maria admitted. He just slumped back over, a pained whine replacing any words he might’ve said as he gently touched over the cracked brown spot that she assumed was once Alex’s face.

She was reluctant to actually call Alex. It was almost four in the morning and they hadn’t spoken in months. It felt weird for their first conversation to be about someone that she took from him. Even if Michael had made the first move, he was also the one to pull away. He started pulling away before Alex even knew. That should’ve been a red flag.

Maria had to call Alex four times before he picked up, sounding more annoyed than ever.

“Wh‒”

“Before you even say anything, just listen. You can be mad at me and Michaell all you want, but we both still care about you and you wouldn’t be this angry if you didn’t care about us. That being said, Michael’s airstream caught on fire and he won’t get out of it,” she said quickly. There was a slight pause before she heard rustling.

“Is it still on fire?”

“He put it out, but he’s sitting in the charred part and I’m not an expert, but that can’t be good for his lungs,” she explained.

“Okay, give me a minute,” he sighed before the call ended.

What a fun day this was going to be.

“Michael, Alex is on his way,” Maria announced as she walked back to the airstream. He didn’t budge.

“Stop, that’s not gonna work, just leave me alone,” he whimpered. Michael had balled himself up beside what was his bed, still cradling that picture.

“I’m not leaving.”

“_Leave_!”

“I’m your girlfriend, not your fucking servant! I'm not just going to do shit because you tell me to!”

It honestly felt good to yell at him, but it instantly turned to regret when he didn’t bother to scream back. He was in a bad place. He'd been in a bad place for a while. He just couldn't seem to get a break. 

Instead of making things worse with the sobbing shell of Michael Guerin, she waited outside for Alex and sent texts to Isobel and Liz. They should probably know what happened.

Maria was stuck on what to do herself for him. She hadn't ever lost a home before, but she knew that Michael was resourceful and had made it through with much less. She couldn't understand why, of all the shit he'd gone through, this was what broke him. Hell, he even managed to take Max's death with just an extra glass of whiskey a night. He didn't lay on the floor sobbing. This was new territory.

Alex pulled up and jumped out of his car looking tired and concerned. A deep frown was etched into his face as he stared at the airstream.

"Shit," he said as he neared her, taking slow steps. Maria blinked a few times in confusion. 

"We haven't seen you in weeks and you come all this way to stare and say shit?" she asked. He just kept staring. "He needs you. He's crying over a burnt picture of you two so I figure I'm not what he needs right now." Alex licked his lips slowly.

"How bad is it on the inside?" he asked softly, not seeming phased by the mention of the picture. 

"I mean, bad. The whole front end is fucked. It's probably going to cost him less to buy a new one than it would be to fix this one," she told him. He let out a long breath, his eyes cascading down as he kicked at the sand. "Am I missing something? First, he acts like it's the end of the world when I know his important things are in the bunker except for that picture and now even you look sad."

She knew. She didn't need to ask. Apparently, a part of her still needed to hear it.

"This was our first home. He got it to give me somewhere safe when I came down. He would've been fine in his truck, but… he wanted to give me a home. After he chose you, I guess… Well, now even our home is gone. Symbolic, really. Feels like it's really the end." 

Oddly enough, hearing one of the two idiots saying it out loud didn't make Maria sad. It just made everything make a little more sense. Life had basically handed them an extra bite of misery to force them to be less miserable. 

"Here's what you're gonna do, you're gonna go in there and get your man back," Maria said firmly. Alex turned to her with a bewildered look on his face.

"You do know he's you're boyfriend, right?" Alex clarified. Maria rolled her eyes. 

"We all know he was never mine to begin with," she said. He still looked hesitant to listen.

"Even if you are serious, it's not that simple. We have so many issues, not including the fact that he–"

"Then talk!" she exclaimed. He looked borderline terrified of the word. "No wonder you're both sad, neither of you understand the word communicate."

"I… I'm actually confused about what is happening," he said slowly. Maria took a step forward, grabbing him by the shoulders. 

"You're going to go in there, tell him that you guys are going to replace that picture with another one taken in front of your new home, and then talk. Talk it better," Maria explained. The more she spoke, the better she felt. This felt more right than any move she'd made in months. 

"Why do you want that? He's your boyfriend," Alex said softly, his last-ditch effort to avoid going in there. She huffed. 

"Look, he's been more of a child that I didn't ask for than a boyfriend. It's kind of a relief to give him to someone better equipped," she admitted. Alex licked his lips again, looking towards the airstream. 

"And you're serious? You're okay with that?" Alex asked one last time. She smiled. God, they really we're going to be perfect once they settled their shit. And she would have a clear conscience.

"Will you please, please be selfish for once?" 

And with a small smile, he headed towards the airstream.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam
> 
> if you have any tag suggestions, let me know!


End file.
